Day 17, ABCs of Gratitude: Questions

Welcome to day 17 of the 'ABCs of Gratitude'! I hope your week is off to a good and grateful start. Today I am sharing my gratitude for something that begins with the letter 'Q'. 

This morning, I will start my day being grateful for 'Questions'. I am grateful for the progress that comes from questions as well as overcoming my own battle with questions.

Before writing this post, I never really thought about questions on a deep level. In fact, before this past year, I was actually pretty afraid of them. Afraid to ask, for fear that I will look uneducated or unqualified; and afraid to be asked, for fear that I won't have the answer. As I write this out, I think back to my high school teachers emphasizing that "there is no such thing as a dumb question." When did I stop believing that? This is all a rather defensive approach, when I look at it on paper.

When you consider questions from a more offensive stance, the whole perspective of a question changes. If you look up the word 'quest' online (Thanks, Google), the word is defined as "a long arduous search for something." In this light, questions almost have an honorable notion to them. In fact, questions are not only valuable, they serve a critical purpose to the process of discovery.

For the longest time, I pushed myself to be a know-it-all and stressed out over not knowing everything. It is no wonder I was so stressed all the time! However, over the past year I have learned to accept and embrace my gaps in knowledge. I am ok with admitting I don't know something. I am not apologetic for asking a question, or multiple questions. 

Being on the asking or answering end of a question is something to be grateful for. Questions open up deeper discussions. They find common ground. They help us grow.

I can't help but wonder: how different would things be if we were grateful for each question we were asked? Or if each person's reaction to your question was one of genuine gratitude? I hadn't thought about this before, and I'm going to try this out and see what happens. If you show gratitude for questions already or would like to also try showing gratitude for questions, I'd love to hear how it goes for you!